when hl2 came out, me and my little brother bought it, and i think it was like 6 CD's lol. At the time, DVD drives were still relatively expensive (if I remember correctly) so all we had was a cd drive.

What a pain in the butt that was to install.

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Pffft. Try installing Hero's Quest over like 8 5.25 floppies. That was back in the day.

The reason the PC release is so big is because it is multi-lingual, so it has all the audio tracks present, for the 360 (not sure about PS3), you have different language releases, so it all fits on one DVD

Whats interesting with the PC release is that it is obviously cheaper to do one version with an extra disc, than more than one version with only one disc.

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Compared to the PC, yes it does. It's roughly equivalent to medium settings on a PC.

Lol, I don't get why it can only burn "CD-R media at 32x". Wait, yes I do, it will never fully replace "older" drivers while people are still burning stuff(music) to CD.

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Most DVD drives are 32x on CDs because that's all the faster the motor is rated for (they're built for DVD first and CD second). The more dense the data is packed (DVDs are on the order of 6-7 times more dense than CDs), the slower the disk needs to be spinning to perform a read/write operation. Slower speeds also mean less likely for the medium to become unstable and wave. The more dense the data is, the less tolarance there is in the medium's instability.

Even my Pioneer DVR-109 from back in 2005 is only 32x burning speed to CD-Rs.

Rockstar went overboard with the textures for the PC release. On PS3 and XB360 versions, they probably scaled the textures way down to fit on a DVD9 (or equivilent) disk. They do that not only to spare having to change DVDs all the time but also because both consoles only have 256 MiB graphics memory. 256 MiB graphics memory on PC forced low settings on GTA4.

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Actually, the 360 has 512MB, the PS3 has 256MB. And I worked it out, in Ireland at least, a pack of 300 DVD-Rs is cheaper than a pack of 5 25GB BD-Rs, more space but less money. To be honest I'd get the BD-Rs if I needed it because I hate going through tons of blank labeled DVD-Rs. Someone keeps stealing my Sharpies

That 512 MiB is shared between the CPU and GPU. The GPU itself only has 10 MiB of dedicated memory to act as the frame buffer. I figure the actual memory the GPU could have allocated to at any time is between 128 and 384 MiB--call it even at 256. XD

bandwith will eventually kill bluray... if the music industry is a tell (which it historically has been) then bluray is a go-between technology - once we have the capacity to get on-demand HD video then disks are out.

bandwith will eventually kill bluray... if the music industry is a tell (which it historically has been) then bluray is a go-between technology - once we have the capacity to get on-demand HD video then disks are out.

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The HD downloads aren't of the same quality as BD. Just like digital downloads hasn't killed off CDs, they won't kill off BD either. The only thing that will kill off BD, is the next superior physical medium they come up with.

The HD downloads aren't of the same quality as BD. Just like digital downloads hasn't killed off CDs, they won't kill off BD either. The only thing that will kill off BD, is the next superior physical medium they come up with.

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Although an opinion not entirely true. Here is at least one article here that says otherwise. And has been covered by various network news as well. However, that's another subject and I don't want to de-rail this thread.

BD doesn't enjoy the same market share as DVD. And, people have shown that they aren't interested in 1080p HD quality movies. Therefore, BR has remained a niche market. With major networks provided free access to their shows online and other 3rd party website like Hulu offering 480p IQ people are flocking in groves. Remember, free is still free. The better IQ of those shows being offered (even though it's not 1080p) is like icing on the cake. So far, people don't care that it's not 1080p regardless if they can discern the difference or not.

And, let us reflect over 1 year ago were Toshiba resigned from the HD format war in Feb 2008. The drum roll was that the format war was confusing customers into buying HD movies thus hurting the HD market. Well, it's been over a year now and BR has not made any significant gains on DVD's market share that are either measurable or sustainable that would put any dent in DVD's market share. All they have done was show figures of who's actually buying BR movies or players. Which is like comparing an apple to an orange.

has IMO, put a serious dent in the growth of BR through alternate competition. It was expected that streaming would take off but as you can see other branches of services (be it free or otherwise) have surfaced as well. And IMO, was unexpected.

It may not put any serious dent into DVD. Let not forget that DVD market is hefty to begin with. However, BR doesn't enjoy such a luxury and, are expecting people to pay a significant amount higher on top of that.

Are but a few examples and guess what? Their IQ is getting a whole lot better since their inception.

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Granted, DVD still has the largest market share, and the streaming services may be good for many, but the majority of people that feel that way haven't had much, if any experience with a true BD quality 1080p movie. Everyone I know that had an HDTV, but no BD player, went out and bought one as soon as I gave them a back to back of the same movie in both DVD and BD.

Even I stream Netflix sometimes, and it's actually pretty good, but for a movie I want to own, it's a different story altogether. Nothing beats physical media for something you want to own. A lesson that is easily learned with a hard drive, or PMP failure where you lose your rightfully purchased drm content.

And besides, HD downloads can't take off with the current state of the US's internet. Most companies are initiating a cap, and the bandwidth isn't high enough for HD streaming. HD downloads can take hours at times. Downloads may take over some day, but not before BD is already obsolete.

I still say they should move to flash media, or something of the sorts.

Truth be told, most people don't care about how pretty it looks. The only reason why the DVD overtook the cassette is because DVDs don't have to be rewound. Blu-Ray is for nothing more than a niche market. The only way it will replace DVD is if it is cheaper than DVD (naturally or artificially).

Truth be told, most people don't care about how pretty it looks. The only reason why the DVD overtook the cassette is because DVDs don't have to be rewound. Blu-Ray is for nothing more than a niche market. The only way it will replace DVD is if it is cheaper than DVD (naturally or artificially).

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I never claimed it will overtake DVD, just that digital downloads wont overtake it.

I wouldn't be so certain. Downloading of games has been rather popular and some of those weigh in at well over 10 GiB. Media may one day be a thing of the past. It really depends on how affordable high speed internet access is. If it gets to a point where people would rather take a bullet in the foot than deal with an ISP, media may prevail. We are really at a tipping point right now.

I wouldn't be so certain. Downloading of games has been rather popular and some of those weigh in at well over 10 GiB. Media may one day be a thing of the past. It really depends on how affordable high speed internet access is. If it gets to a point where people would rather take a bullet in the foot than deal with an ISP, media may prevail. We are really at a tipping point right now.

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Yeah, but games are bought less often than movies in most households.

And like I said, the ISPs are the main reason HD downloads won't take off anytime soon (FiOS needs to penetrate more markets. lol.), drm is the other issue that could be a thorn in the digital dl's side. You won't be able to bring your movie over to you buddy's house to watch it on his TV, and things of that nature. It all hinges on those 2 things, at least the way I see it.

DRM is another thing that is at a tipping point right now or at least will be in the near future). The music industry learned that DRM is useless, hence giving in to the popularity of MP3s. The movie and game industries may make the same realization some day. It's hard to say when (probably when younger generations of people get in charge of these corporations) but I do say it is inevitable.

DRM is another thing that is at a tipping point right now or at least will be in the near future). The music industry learned that DRM is useless, hence giving in to the popularity of MP3s. The movie and game industries may make the same realization some day. It's hard to say when (probably when younger generations of people get in charge of these corporations) but I do say it is inevitable.

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I hope so. I'm so tired of dealing with it, personally. I hope it's sooner than later, but I wouldn't make any bets on it.